


Soar

by artist_artists



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 03:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5811319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artist_artists/pseuds/artist_artists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While recovering from his injuries at The Resistance base, Finn has a lot to figure out about his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soar

After Finn wakes up, his first thoughts are of Rey. 

It’s a rough couple of minutes of panic about Rey and confusion about his own whereabouts before Dr. Kalonia appears to calm him down. He’s at The Resistance base, and they had successfully destroyed Starkiller base. The fighting’s not over, not by a longshot, but the First Order has lost momentum and will need time to regroup. 

Rey is fine. She’s not here, but she’s fine, and Finn will be fine too, eventually. Rey left to find Luke Skywalker. Jedi training, that will be her part to play in The Resistance. Finn doesn’t know what his part will be, if he even has a place in The Resistance at all. 

Poe seems to think he does, casually referring to Finn as a Resistance Hero every time he and BB-8 stop by for a visit. They’re not always around, often being sent off for quick missions to places that Resistance intelligence suggests may have a large gathering of First Order troops. But when Poe and BB-8 are on base, they stop by often. Despite the awkwardness of being stuck in bed while entertaining guests, Finn appreciates the visits. Poe talks about his latest mission, BB-8 whirs and beeps, and Finn talks about Rey a lot. Maybe too much, but neither of his guests seem to mind. Poe speaks fondly of Rey, too, despite only a brief meeting. There’s a spark of jealousy when Finn first hears Poe extolling her virtues. In a competition for Rey’s affection. Finn’s not sure he’d be able to beat Poe. It’s not a nice thought, and he shuts it down immediately. It’s not a competition - everyone should love Rey as much as he does, and the ones who deserve it will get her love in return. She’s off training to be a Jedi, so it’s unlikely romance will be an option for her with anyone, anyway. 

Finn can’t help but ask Poe about it anyway. More than just the nature of Poe’s feelings for Rey, Finn wonders if the question will bring answers about Poe’s personal life. Finn’s heard nothing of a wife or girlfriend, nothing of Poe’s family in general. 

“Am I interested in dating Rey?” Poe repeats the question, eyes crinkling in amusement 

“Well, I just wondered. Because with the Jedi training and all, I don’t think… I just wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“Right, right,” Poe says. He’s grinning now, and Finn’s a little annoyed. “Well, don’t worry about me, buddy. I definitely am not interested in dating Rey.”

Which makes Finn more than a bit defensive, because Rey is the best person Finn’s ever met and _everyone_ should be interested in dating her, what does Poe _mean_ she’s not his type? 

And Poe’s grin never fades as he explains that his type is men, that’s all, and Finn’s embarrassed for not even considering that as an option. Things like that hadn’t mattered much back when he was FN-2187. Stormtroopers didn’t exactly have permission to date or much privacy to have sex. It’s just another reminder of all the possibilities, all the _choices_ he has before him. It’s good, he knows, to have these choices, but it’s scary, too, and he thinks of little else during the many hours spent alone in his hospital bed. 

-

A few days before he’s released from the medbay, General Organa comes to see him. Finn had seen her only briefly after he’d woken up, so her visit surprises him into dropping the datapad he’s holding to the floor as he tries to sit up straight in his bed. She picks it up and places it on the small table next to his bed, one eyebrow arched in amusement. 

“Reading up on Wookiees, hm?” She asks. “Chewie will be pleased to know he had such an impression on you.”

Finn finds his voice. “I was looking into the language,” he explains. Watching Han, Rey, and Poe communicate effortlessly with various species that Finn couldn’t understand at all had been illuminating. With the First Order, learning other languages had never been a priority for stormtroopers, or even an option. He felt stupid now every time he witnessed an exchange beyond his ability to comprehend, and when he’d brought it up, Poe had brought him a datapad full of information on the galaxy’s many forms of communication.

“Not everyone speaks a billion languages, though. Don’t stress it,” he’d told Finn. But Finn had gratefully accepted the distraction. There was nothing else for him to do here except worry about his future, anyway.

“Chewie would be pleased to hear that, too,” General Organa tells him. Her face turns serious. “Finn, I know you’re going to be released in a few days, and then will need a few weeks of physical therapy before you’re really back on your feet.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what they tell me.”

“You’ll be staying in the barracks here once you’re released from the medbay,” Leia explains. “Currently, there’s more room there than here.” She pauses. “I’d like to you to consider joining The Resistance officially once you’re well, Finn. With the destruction of the Hosnian system, we’ve had the interest of many new recruits. We’re starting training soon, and you’d be a welcome addition to any faction. We need more than pilots and infantry, too, if further battle doesn’t interest you. There are positions in analytics and maintenance, and many other day-to-day operations areas.”

 _Like sanitation_ , Finn thinks grimly.

“I know your original plan in Takodana was to find passage to the outer rim. We can also arrange that for you once you’re well, if that’s still what you would prefer. We owe you that favor, after all you’ve done for us.”

Finn’s quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say. This is a decision he still feels incredibly unprepared to make. Eventually, the general speaks again.

“Think about it,” she says, with softer eyes and a less official tone. “You have some time.”

-

“I think you’d make a great pilot,” Poe says as he leads Finn toward the barracks on the day he’s finally released from the medbay.

“How do you figure?”

“You’re smart, you pick things up quickly, you’re brave to the point of stupidity,” Poe says, turning back to grin at him. “All very important qualities for a Resistance pilot.”

Finn thinks back to all the complicated controls he’s seen in various spacecraft and doubts any of those will be quite enough.

“You’d be great on the ground, too,” Poe continues. “You’ve shown that already.” He stops at a door. “Luckily for you, this room right across from mine recently became available.” 

Finn rolls his eyes, wondering if this “luck” amounted to Poe charming a fellow Resistance fighter into switching rooms so this one would be empty. He almost makes a joke about it, but stops himself when he remembers the casualties The Resistance has suffered lately. Perhaps it’s just as likely that the room’s former occupant is dead. 

Poe opens the door. “It’s tiny, but it’s what we’ve got. There should be some clothes in the drawers. Washroom’s at the end of the hall to the left, and you saw the mess hall on our way in. I’m late. I’ve gotta get going before Beebee-Ate sends out a search party for me.” Poe claps him on the shoulder and disappears down the hall, leaving Finn alone in his new quarters.

It _is_ tiny, nothing more than a narrow bed, a small desk and chair, and a set of drawers (which include a few sets of standard grey shirts and pants and the jacket Poe had given him, pretty seriously damaged after facing Kylo Ren’s lightsaber), but FInn’s surprised there’s any privacy at all in the barracks. As a stormtrooper, there were no separate bedrooms. No time to themselves, ever. He’s not sure if he’ll welcome this change. Having some privacy might be nice after his time in the medbay, but he fears this arrangement could become rather claustrophobic and isolating.

Finn learns quickly that it won’t be as bad as he suspects. Privacy is available to him when he needs it, but many of the soldiers keep their doors open when they’re in their rooms. Finn gets to know the people in the rooms around him, and meets others in the mess hall. Most don’t seem terribly suspicious of the former stormtrooper, and he imagines he has General Organa and Poe to thank for that.

He spends the time when everyone else is working and he’s not back in the medbay working on his strength to wander the base or study in his room, not just languages now, but plans for his future, too. If he decides to leave, he’ll need a destination, and he doesn’t know much about his options. Sometimes, he’s left watching over a two-year-old girl, a child of two pilots who has been sent to live on the base with her parents after the grandmother she had lived with passed away. It’s not an ideal situation, but Aya usually seems happy enough to be passed off to whoever’s available when her parents are busy. 

The girl is unceremoniously dumped into his arms one afternoon when the pilots are sent off on an urgent mission, and this time she is not pleased. She struggles and cries, picking up on everyone else’s frantic mood. The base empties quickly and Finn watches from a distance with a screaming child in his arms as the X-wings take off. 

_Babysitter to the resistance_ , he thinks bitterly as they disappear into the sky. 

It’s longer than he’s ever been left with Aya before, and even when she calms down, it’s a demanding task to keep her busy. Finn has no prior experience with children, had never even seen any during his stormtrooper training, but as the hours wear on, he’s at least glad for the company. The rest of the support staff remaining on the base are tense and worried, but Aya is fine once she gets over her initial panic. Finn tries not to worry too much about the mood on base, though he knows those of somber mood actually know what the mission is, which Finn does not. He’s no more than a civilian at the base that they’re putting up with because he helped them. So he tries to focus on what he _does_ know, which is that Poe is a good leader and a great pilot. He also pointedly avoids thinking about how the only time he ever flew with Poe, he’d had to eject from the TIE fighter and ended up stranded alone on a desert planet.

When night comes, he lets Aya take his bed when she eventually falls asleep. Hours pass as he sits on the floor, aching back pressed up against the bunk. It’s early morning when the X-wings start to return, and Finn picks Aya up and heads outside, too impatient to wait for news to come to him. Everyone left on base is there, General Organa included, but the X-wings trickle in slowly. The expressions on the faces of the emerging pilots are enough to tell Finn the mission did not go well, and it’s with increasing worry that he waits for familiar faces to return - either of Aya’s parents, Jessika and Snap from down the hall, _Poe_ , and they all do, eventually. Poe’s X-wing lands a few minutes after Aya’s grateful parents relieved Finn of their daughter. Finn watches Poe glance at General Organa and give her a stiff shake of the head. No one else will be returning, Finn understands, taking in the empty space that used to house X-wings. Some pilots had been lost in the fight. 

Poe claps Finn on the shoulder, his usual greeting smile more of a grimace, before disappearing with the general for debriefing, and Finn heads back to his room for some fitful sleep. He doesn’t make it to the mess hall until dinner, and after staying an hour and catching glimpses of every pilot he’d seen return this morning besides Poe, Finn picks up some extra food and brings it back to Poe’s room. He knocks gently, wondering if Poe might be sleeping, but he’s let in immediately. Poe thanks him for the food, but only picks at it as the pair sit on the bed, backs against the wall. They’re as far apart as they can be while on the same bed, and while Finn thinks Poe is probably the type who’d appreciate a more physical form of comfort, he’s hesitant to provide it for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. 

Finn had gathered from mess hall talk that not only had pilots been lost, but they had failed their mission objective as well. Deaths with no purpose, a completely failed mission, that’s why Poe’s as despondent as Finn’s seen him since he was a prisoner of the First Order. Poe had told him once, during Finn’s stay in the medbay, that when Finn removed him from his cell, he’d been sure that was the end - that his mission to return the map to The Resistance had failed.

“Because you thought I was taking you to be executed?” Finn had asked. For some reason, he’d never considered that.

“Well, yeah,” Poe had replied. “Ren had already taken what he needed from me, I served no purpose anymore. And killing me meant there was no chance I could even inform anyone in The Resistance that Beebee-Ate had the map. The mission would have been doomed.”

Finn had frowned. “ _You_ would have been doomed.”

Poe had just shrugged. “Yeah, that too.”

Finn thinks of that exchange now as they sit on Poe’s bed, marvels at such dedication to a cause that would make death a secondary concern to failing. If that’s what’s needed to fight for The Resistance, Finn doesn’t have it in him. He couldn’t do it for the First Order and won’t be able to here either, even if he supports this cause. He probably doesn’t have a place here, after all.

But then he remembers how determined he was to get to Starkiller base to rescue Rey, despite knowing he would probably die in the process. He remembers his decision to escape the First Order thinking that if he died, at least he had tried. 

Finn supposes that he does have it in him to put a mission before his own life, if the mission is important enough.

They don’t talk much that night, but Finn stays until Poe decides to go to bed. He wants, in some small way, to let Poe know that there will always be something to come back for, even if the most important mission has failed.

-

Poe dates someone.

People show affection freely on the base. There are lots of couples on the base, so Finn shouldn’t be surprised. None of Poe’s other friends are surprised. Apparently, Poe dates a lot.

It’s jealousy more than surprise, Finn realizes pretty quickly. He doesn’t even see Poe and the tall, blond tech do much more than talk to each other, but they sit so close they touch and Finn can barely control his scowl. He’s not even sure of the guy’s name, but he’s seen him around the base and he never looks at Finn with kindness unless other people around to see it. Even if Finn did like this other guy, he’s hardly seen Poe since this started. Finn has two close friends in the whole galaxy, and Rey is off spending her time with Luke Skywalker and now Poe is going to spend all of his time with this smirking slug and Finn will just have to hope BB-8 still hangs out with him, at least.

Poe’s budding relationship barely lasts three days. Finn learns of its demise one morning at the mess hall when Poe doesn’t show and the tech is sulking across the hall alone. 

“Did something happen?” he asks as casually as he can manage.

Jessika grins. “Idiot called you a stormtrooper,” she says, and Finn’s face falls as the words sink in. She doesn’t seem to notice. “Trashing you is _definitely_ not the way to win Poe’s heart.”

“We should be thanking you,” Snap adds.

Jessika nods emphatically. “Definitely. _Thank you_ for existing so we didn’t have to put up with that idiot any longer than necessary.”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” says Finn, feeling a bit queasy dealing with the combatting emotions. The knowledge that there are people in The Resistance who _do_ hate him hurts, but the knowledge that there are others who support him, that Poe won’t tolerate it, makes him feels warm and safe and a little nervous, too.

“I don’t like that guy much either,” Finn adds when he feels less like throwing up. “It’s weird that everyone but Poe knew he was…”

“Awful,” Jessika finishes. 

Snap shrugs. “Poe’s usually a good judge of character, but he _really_ tries to see the good in people.”

“Especially people who have joined up here,” continues Jessika, indicating the mess hall full of Resistance members. “Sometimes he wants to see the good in them so much I think he just invents some good so he’ll have something to see.”

And Finn thinks back to the day he’d first seen Poe again, remembers Poe telling him that he was a good man, and worries that Jessika’s assessment might be accurate.

-

Finn’s close to being given a clean bill of health. Close to being cleared for duty, if that’s what he chooses. The panic intensifies daily as the date nears, and his attempts at playing it cool are less successful each day, especially near Poe, who makes him feel a bit panicky for other reasons, too.

Being anything more than Poe’s friend wasn’t something Finn had consciously considered until seeing him with someone else, but now it’s hard to get the thought out of his mind. Poe’s funny, attractive, and talented, and lately he’s shown even less restraint in his physical affection with Finn. He also seems to be on a mission to convince Finn that he actually does possess all of the positive qualities Poe and the others have attributed to him. It’s hard for Finn sometimes to stop himself from taking the risk, to just kissing Poe right there in his quarters and seeing what happens. He knows Poe wouldn’t be upset. He actually thinks Poe would be the exact opposite of upset. Finn’s no love expert, but he’s pretty sure this isn’t one-sided. What he is sure of is the pointlessness of taking this plunge when he doesn’t even know if he’ll be on this planet next week.

“You could go anywhere. You could do _anything_ ,” Poe tells him one night in the privacy of Finn’s room, with only BB-8 to overhear. Finn knows it’s meant to help but it really, _really_ doesn’t. “I’d recommend staying away from the First Order, though. Don’t think they’d welcome you back with open arms.”

“Nah, probably not,” Finn replies with a small smile, thankful for a joke to lighten the mood. It doesn’t last long. Poe’s face is serious and he holds Finn’s gaze when he speaks again.

“Look, even if you don’t stay, don’t join up, even if you never contribute anything ever again, you’re always going to be a hero to The Resistance.”

It’s too much. Finn shifts his gaze to the floor for a second in an attempt to steady himself. 

“Well, if that’s true, maybe I better quit while I’m ahead,” he jokes, attempting a smile. He looks up in time to see Poe frowning. He opens his mouth to speak but seems to change his mind, biting his lip instead.

“You’ll have to keep in touch if you leave,” Poe says after a moment, the easy smile returning to his face as he gets up from the chair to leave. “You can’t disappear. Beebee-Ate would miss you too much.”

BB-8 beeps in what sounds like agreement and rolls a little closer to nudge Finn’s leg where it hangs from the bed. It’s enough to make Finn’s smile real, enough to make that smile stay long after Poe ushers BB-8 out of the room and follows, rolling his eyes at whatever the droid is beeping excitedly about. It’s enough to remind Finn that he wants to stay.

He’s always wanted to stay. That’s never been the issue. But he’s starting to believe he might actually be able to do some good by staying - he could do good things in The Resistance, he could _have_ good things. Why not fight for the light, for the good, for the people he loves? How could he not join the side that helped save him by offering him a name and a choice? Running away from the fight would feel like giving a pass to the ones to whom he was just a number, just a liability for all of the qualities he’s told him make an asset to The Resistance. It would feel like giving a pass to the First Order, who destroyed the entire Hosnian system and expected no one in their ranks to bat an eye over the loss of life. Finn struggles with being called a hero, but 

he knows this much - he doesn’t want to ignore that. He doesn’t want to know that they are continuing to terrorize the galaxy while he hides out somewhere hoping to be left alone. He _can’t._

-

He decides he wants to be a pilot.

It’s ambitious. Probably not the smartest choice. But when he’s considering his options, all he can think about is flying with Poe in the TIE fighter, with Rey and then Han and Chewie in the Millennium Falcon. They’re his first happy memories, despite the fear and stress attached to them. It was his first time fighting for himself and people he loves, his first memory of having any semblance of control over his destiny. He had never felt more alive. He can’t imagine choosing anything else. 

He applies to the training without telling anyone. He thinks he could be a good pilot, but he’s a little worried that the general will deny his request and suggest he set his sights a little lower as a beginner. Not even a day passes before Poe chases him down in the barracks when he’s on the way to his room after physical therapy.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Poe says once he’s caught up, eyes twinkling with delight despite the admonishment. He pulls Finn into a hug. “I had to hear you’re gonna be a pilot from General Organa! You’re going to make such a great pilot. And you’re going to love it! I wish I could be the one to teach you. Maybe I’ll take you up sometime, give you a little head start on that training.” 

Poe is _glowing_ , and Finn allows himself to bask in the warmth for a while before pulling back from the embrace a bit and cutting off the excited chatter.

“Slow down,” he tells Poe, smiling. “I didn’t even get accepted yet, so who knows if-”

Poe rolls his eyes. “ _I_ know. The general would have sent you a personal invitation if you hadn’t applied on your own, Finn.”

Finn smile falters. “If it’s special treatment, I don’t want it,” he declares. “If I’m not actually qualified, then I shouldn’t get accepted.”

“You’re more than qualified,” Poe says, like he’s offended by Finn’s doubt. “Special people get special treatment, pal. Get used to it.”

Poe is still so close, still radiating warmth from his delight, and Finn is finally starting to believe him. He kisses Poe right there in the hall because he can’t think of a good reason not to, and he doesn’t want to lose his nerve. Barely a second passes before Poe lets out a startled, joyous laugh, muffled against Finn’s lips, and starts kissing back.

After a moment that will definitely become a high ranking one on Finn’s list of happiest memories, the kiss ends. Poe pulls back just enough to gaze at Finn with wide, joyful eyes. “You’re going to make such a great pilot,” he says again, then leans in for another kiss.


End file.
